Hannover is not only the capital city of Lower Saxony but also a city I'm quite familiar with because my grandfather lives close to it. I hadn't been there in ages and my parents said it had changed for the worse quite a bit. They were so right. So much concrete, no trees!
It was so wonderful seeing Marianne again. When she walked on stage I got the shivers. She had her cane and walked towards the edge of the stage really slowly while the keyboardist played a melody that sounded like from a music box. She blew kisses at the audience and smiled at me when she saw me.
I had bought a bouquet to give her at the end of he concert but seeing as the set up was about two meters away from the edge of the stage for some reason, I gave them to the lady at the merchandise booth instead who said she put them backstage.
The setlist was fantastic. The best songs from the new album and great rarities. This tour she is playing with a completely new band and they were fantastic, but it seems like the sound engineer had a bad day. It was such a shame, her voice was totally drowned out during the rock songs, but it was fine during the ballads so I figured it was a problem with the mixing, not her voice.
My favourite songs of the evening where Late Victorian Holocaust/Sister Morphine which were connected by an amazing piano bridge courtesy of Ed Harcourt. I also loved Marathon Kiss, Love More Or Less and Last Song. Due to her broken hip she had to sit down a lot and her face was obscured by her notestand. She apologised to the side of the audience who couldn't see her though, so it was okay.
Next to me sat a very nice older couple and they were very interested in how someone as young as me got into Marianne - as a lot of people are - and they thought it was cool I worked on the book. Speaking of which, I got to browse through it in a bookstore and it's beautiful and my full name, spelt correctly - I was worried about that - is in the thanks. It's out in Germany already, but they will probably send me a copy when the French/English version is out.
I enjoyed the concert but felt so bad for Marianne because of the pain she was in. She joked about it, but you could see the pain in her face sometimes and I just wanted to hug her. A couple hours before the show I messaged her asking if she'd meet people at the stage door because I didn't want to bother her if she was exhausted/in pain. She wrote back she'd make a quick get away, but I completely understood.
Next month in Paris Andrew and I will probably be backstage - knock on wood - so it's really no issue. I'm so lucky to have met her so many times already and to be in touch with her and don't want to be one of those selfish superfans who wait at the stage door every single time at every concert. She unfortunately has some of those.
Sooo yeah. Now I'm getting psyched for Paris et al next month!